This blog is devoted to talking about comic book characters and elements: the good, the bad and the ugly.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Society of Modern American Science Heroes

The Society of Modern American Science Heroes (or SMASH for short) is a superhero team in the Tom Strong series. Each member is actually a Golden Age character that was owned by Nedor Comics, but fell into public domain. The team consisted of American Crusader, Black Terror, Cavalier, Fighting Yank I-II, Green Ghost, Liberator, Ms. Masque, Pyroman, the Scarab, Tom Strange, Tim Roland and The Woman in Red.

In this mythos, all of the original Nedor Comics story actually took place on an alternate Earth called "Terra Obsura". In the Silver Age, Tom meets the team for the first time. However, as soon as he leaves, Obsura gets attacked by a moon alien awakened by the moon landings. During the battle, Ghost, Black Terror and Tom Strong's sidkick, Mike Ellies, died and the rest of the team were put in stasis fields except for Tom Strange, who traveled 30 years into the future. 30 years later, in "Modern Age", Strange and Strong freed the team and they battle the alien (who was builting a base on Earth) with the aid of a computer Black Terror's sidekick, Tim Roland, made. Depsite defeating the alien, Fighting Yank died. During this time, Ghost turned into his name sake and re-named himself "Green Ghost". Unable to adapt to 21st century life, the team decided to disband. However, three years later a "technology plague" stated to turn tech useless and send Obsura back to the Dark Ages. The team re-united and discovered a person called Mystico and his plague so removes the powers of science-power heroes. So only the magic-powered Liberator and Scarab have their powers. After Ms. Masque de-active his powers, Tom Strange convinces Mystico to be a force for good. Years later, they meet Captain Future (another Nedor Comic hero) and have to battle the Terror 2004 (an evil version the before mentioned computer). However, a time-travelling version of Black Terror helped the team defeat it.